Social Question

Why do people buy these "Real Dolls"?

I remember when they were launched I found them fascinating. Possibly because as a little girl I was “doll mad”. I used to drive my parents crazy whining for new dolls!!

However these dolls here are so lifelike and beautiful, their skin feels real, their “bits” are also very real. I watched a documentary on people who have these dolls and it appears that they have a fully committed love relationship with the doll. This is how they see it anyway. One guy even takes family photographs! One man had eight. They all seemed to have difficulty in finding a partner, but one said he just preferred the doll. What is behind this? I keep thinking of necrophilia? One man said he particularly liked their stoic, stillness? Would love your thoughts on this. As by the way they are very expensive too.

147 Answers

I have seen that documentary, the one put out by BBC anyway.

I can see the appeal of having a partner (and I do use that term loosely) that doesn’t talk back, that basically you can dress however you’d like, control, etc. That being said, I can’t quite wrap my head around the whole relationship with an inanimate object. The doll can’t refuse, can’t say no…. of course then we get back to the control issue.

Not sure about the necrophilia thing, as it seems these men (and there were only men in the documentary, surely there are male dolls for women and gay men?) attach a personality and ‘liveness’ if you will, to these dolls, so I don’t think it is necrophilia that motivates them.

I don’t know, it seems odd to me, but as long as they aren’t hurting anyone, leave them to it.

@rahm_sahriv what you say makes sense, a feeling of control I wonder why they need to control to that level? I also felt that but when they said stillness it got me thinking. They are so beautiful these dolls, so perhaps they have unrealistic expectations of women?

@Just_Justine Either they have a mental condition or were abused as a child and are seeking control anyway they can get it?

The dolls are beautiful and ‘perfect’ in a way, so I would say you are probably right, there is an unrealistic expectation of women present.

I remember one guy saying he would like to have a real relationship with a woman someday, but he didn’t think that was possible. Either his standards are way to high because of the doll, unreasonable self esteem or he hasn’t found a woman that will cow-tow to him. Any of those things aren’t that healthy.

I saw a documetary on this, too. Remember I said on another thread that people are like water, that they take the path of least resistance? This is one such example of that. How much easier is it to dress a doll any way you want it, put it’s make-up on any way you want it, have sex with it any time you want it, perform whatever sexual acts you wish, and never have to worry about it’s feelings, or buy it dinner in order to get laid? That is waaay easier than doing what it takes to overcome the problems a person faces with relationships and intimacy. Doing it this way means never having to face those issues ever again.

@zophu The documentary showed the doll “repairer” he does their joint repair and other bits. So the dolls are sent to his home. His live in girlfriend felt she could never compare to the dolls. It was odd hearing that, that she actually was comparing herself to a doll. But that in itself is an interesting concept. The doll sells on basic measurements I do believe there are only two body types. Some research must have been done by the maker to ascertain favourable body types? Which is worrying. As you say their measurements are not really regular. Their mouths were all very similar, getting stranger!!

Because they are terrified of real-life relationships. Poor things. Not that I’d date any of those guys. But such people haven’t learned to take the bitter with the sweet, and are more comfortable in a fantasy world where no one ever calls them out on their stuff, disagrees with them, thinks about them in a way that they can’t control, ages, gains weight, has an accident, becomes permanently disfigured, disabled or sick…

He doesn’t have to care about a doll’s feelings, because he can make them up. A real-life woman would have her own issues that would concern her partner if he were with her, and that’s too much of a hassle for such men, as well. I know these issues can crop up with partners of any gender, but for this, I mean the men who buy these dolls.

They might not see themselves as sexually attractive to real-life women, or may have a sense of low self-worth. They may be attracted to women sexually, but not like them as people. I’ve known several men like that, who were with women, but didn’t like them, really. Relationships are messy. People get angry, argue and fight, and most people don’t know how to have a productive fight, so that stuff’s scary! Super-sensitive types might not be up to handling that. People and their values change, which sometimes causes relationships to end.

As for the guy with a girlfriend in one of those docs who also had a collection of real life dolls, that I couldn’t speak to. It seems to me that if a man I was dating preferred his dolls to me, then I’d be kind to myself and let him go.

Eeeeeeww.
I didn’t actually watch, but a show called “Taboo” on the History Channel, I think had a segment about this. The guy in the commercial said something really stupid like “Until I can get a real girl….” or something like that. It showed him combing her hair! All I could think was that he wasn’t likely to be anywhere that he could find a real girl if he were spending all his time with this piece of plastic, and what woman in her right mind would want him after this?

If this is what it takes to make lonely people happy, keep pervs off the street, or prevent farmers from raping chickens, then… well… maybe… ugh! Nope. Not. Sorry… I just can’t say that this is ok. It’s fucking with peoples minds in ways that should not be entertained.

Abandoning reality is fine for a mental escape, for a while. But I fear these dolls would promote addictions of their own just as any drug or alcohol. I fear it that addiction would be expressed in public encounters just as any other addiction. This should not be encouraged as a proper direction for society to pursue.

Fetishes are not rational. I suppose there’s an element of control involved, but without love or any form of feedback, I can’t see the point. Whatever folks are into that doesn’t harm anyone else….
The only ones I’ve seen in real life were the inflatable variety and were used as gag gifts or practical jokes. These dolls that @Just_Justine describes are more like store maniquins?

I think that the question was worded so innocuously that the NSFW prefix isn’t needed.

@Just_Justine Look at the bright side; No unwanted pregnancy,over-demanding partner,disease,pain,long lasting,etc,etc. people might want something that serve them with more advantage than the real one. It’s their choice after all.

If you’re able to personify a realistic looking doll, what does that say about what goes on in your head when you think of real people? There’s not much defending this fetish. I can’t watch this documentary right now, it’s a little depressing.

@Just_Justine I looked at the link, it appears to be some kind of “improved” version of a manniquin. I’m quite attached to my motorcycle, but this goes beyond anything I can get my head around. I can certainly find better things to spend $6000 on.

@Cruiser sounds really interesting, does that mean they might even start speaking? If this doll is sold because of loneliness or inability to have relationships I reckon there is a massive market out there

@Just_Justine Going back to 2001 a man patented this…I can only imagine what other things are in the works!

Choy applied last April for a patent on the technology and was granted U.S. patent WO 00/59581 in October, according to the patent application.

Using signals from the Internet as well as sound and touch sensors, the apparatus would allow a user wearing a virtual reality headset to have virtual sex with someone in another part of the world also online or with a person of the user’s imagination, such as a celebrity, the patent backgrounder suggests.

The doll itself will be essentially passive, but certain key body parts would be motor driven, the patent says.

Wow! Shockingly realistic looking. I wouldn’t begrudge an owner of one of these any comfort or pleasure that they might derive from it. But the whole idea is inevitably tinged with more than a little sadness.

Oh no! The documentary narrator just said, “The dolls can take a lot of abuse. They were made for that.”
What? Who would abuse these love dolls?
(....I am imagining the Abused Dolls Shelters….and counselors…and the meetings)

@TheOnlyException I had the same thought gross! Plus the fact he shagged one? was she so irresistible that particular one? very odd. Bet “her” b/f would not have liked that? @ChazMaz maybe it is all that rough kissing ew

These are incredible and for anyone who’s ever played with paper dolls or doll apps on a computer then these are a fantasy come true and fully dimensional and pretty damn functional. I’d like to have a team of these, a posh apt and webcam business :)

Towards the end of the documentary, Micheal has a birthday party. With his Real Life Girlfriend and only two of his eight love dolls. They are all wearing pointy birthday party hats.
.....what do you suppose Micheal got for his birthday???????????????hhhhmmmm….
.....(we all chipped in together and got you a_________!!).....

If its the documentary I watched a few years ago.. you can buy replacement pubes, if yours get worn off!! They have little packets on the production line! Doesn’t one guy take his ‘missus’ out in the car?? Very strange, but each to their own!!

oh my word, had forgotten how funny the programme was, the bloke that goes hang gliding, I forgot about him, she was in the wrens, she doesn’t still have her uniform which is a shame!!sorry but I find it quite amusing!! I know I’ll burn in hell these poor unfortunate people and I can’t help but laugh!!!
Each to their own, who are we to judge?

I see a glorified flesh-light, and an incredible opportunity – I sometimes do advertisements for gaming and otaku stores, and one of these with all the lovely bits removed, built to specifications of a gaming company’s characters, dressed up in full costume for the debut of a giant blockbuster game like a new WoW expansion or something from Square-Enix or EA would be awesome; they already spend millions on advertising. Could you see a life-sized almost completely human replica of Lightning from FFXIII standing in a window of a megastore selling advance preorders or for a midnight debut party? It’s a whole hell of a lot more expensive than generic mannequins, but they look so much more realistic for it; I could see Square licensing modified versions for advertisements that would make the competition green with envy.

But then some perv would buy the character dolls and put the lovely bits back in them and ruin everything ;_;

Men are the more emotionally fragile of the species, and easier to mess up in the head, as is evidenced by modern America and how it treats its young men. I’d own one just because sex toys are fun, but a lot of guys own them because they don’t have the emotional or psychological capacity to be intimate with another three-dimensional person, complete with quirks, preferences, and problems all their own. I’ve seen some terrible, scary things done to boys and men alike, so is it any wonder?

My ex would’ve gotten a kick out of this – she’d probably steal it from me to play with >:3

I have no idea why someone would want one of these in their home, unless they have given up on figuring out how to connect with a real person. I am realizing more and more that a person’s inability to maintain a relationship with others is usually their own doing. If you can’t make it work with anybody, the only thing all those people had in common was you.

@Fenris too true! maybe they will start selling stars you know Julia Roberts or whoever, imagine how much those would be. Or Pammy A. By the way I know how those boy feels the ones you mentioned, relationships are not easy. Well mine have not been.

I wouldn’t mind one, not for company of course loll. Dull as dishwater she or he would be, I’d like the dressing her up part (no idea why), she’d make a great conversational piece laying on the coffee table. Go on admit it there are perks!! she could be my muse, I love taking black and white photos and who can actually pose in those awkward positions? I’d make her famous, not sure how, she could play beautiful hot dead people. On Scream No. 26 and we could swap clothes and go shopping together. But where do I hide her when I want to in my small apartment in the cupboard?

@TheOnlyException : yes, there’s a fetish for nostrils. There’s a rule for the Internetz and that is Rule 34 – there is porn of it. No exceptions.

@Just_Justine : perky perks <3, and what you do is build a fancy coffee table or corner table with a trapdoor where you can fold her up and tuck her in where nobody would find her, I have like 10 trapdoors in my stuff. And I think you’re talking about the joy of doting over things.

I find this so extremely creepy! I would be scared to wake up in the morning and see a naked man-doll in my bedroom. Not that I would ever have one, but why would someone want one of these? Would someone want these because they want to have a girl/boyfriend, but one that they could take things to another level with? I guess you could collect them, as long as they’re dressed. They’re probably good for dressing up, and “controlling” since they don’t have a say in what you do to them. I guess they’re for a wide audience, perverts and “real doll collectors”

Maybe one has an angry face, and one is young, and one is older, and one is fat and one is very thin?
I am trying to imagine what the guy doll would look like. Do you suppose that if you wake up in the morning next to him there is a permanent little pup tent in the bed? ;)

@ChazMaz : Ok, so let’s deconstruct me. Let’s use me as a customer. I’ve destroyed more relationships through my social ineptness in the last 4 years than most people will in their lives (count’s around 20). I don’t like people and the thought of extroverted behavior leaves a pit in my stomach so bad I’ve had to go to the hospital for sedatives before. The few relationships I’ve maintained for more than a month were with people with man-harems anyway. So, we can say SAD, depressive unipolarity, autism, and so on and so forth – it’s not a control thing, it’s a homonculus for people who are either so emotionally scared and scarred that it’s the only thing they feel safe enough to be intimate with, or people who are so free from sexual tradition and norms and comfortable that this would just be a genuinely interesting sex toy to play with.

Personally, I’m ready to try the dating game again, but I’m not even going to bother until I’ve got a steady source of income, a place to legally park my head at night and prospects for the future, and that’s about 8 months off yet. I also like to play with sex toys and like girls that like to play with sex toys, and that’s what this is.

@all Did you read the testimonial page? These dolls ARE the relationship. They are not only used as sex objects.
I wonder if the guy with eight dolls could open up a business like, “Dream Doll Brothel” Would that be prostitution? or entertainment?@Fenris LOL! dang, I just read your post, but I’m going post mine anyways!

@TheOnlyException hahah I miscounted that would be 7 holes then. I did a search late last night and I found the answer, but I forgot it hahaha. It was like a whole paper on object love quite long I meant to save it but was too tired. It happened in the old days with statues. Maybe that is why Michaelangelo had no arms. @Fenris the trap door sounds great but my apartment so small it would fly into the neighbours apartment or the foyer lol. @mollypop51797 I know I was trying to imagine last night in bed having this guy lying next to me, what would I say to him? “Oh its been a long day dear” he would just stare back at me, much like a regular man I guess. I cant imagine why his dick is detachable? perhaps when he is in the dog box I’ll do a Bobbit and say “there1” you are not getting any!! not that he would care. Besides its so one sided? I mean there I would be saying “oh your lips are so er plump, you sexy thing” he would just lie there like he is dead, but he’d never complain about my woman belly either?

@Just_Justine “I cant imagine why his dick is detachable?” I think it’s so you can clean it, or swap it out for various sizes/shapes/whatever-makes-you-happy. Maybe they’ll make an elf-penis for $300 or something, it’ll have 3 balls and be very “pointy.”

@TheOnlyException I am replying to you but someone said they are cold as in skin temperature. You can warm them up with an electric blanket, I know you didn’t need to know that lmao and yes I worry myself at times.

i’ve wanted a realdoll since day one. you don’t have to be a creepy perv to have one—there are plenty of reasons besides being a lonely white male with 6000 dollars to splash. as a matter of fact my girlfriend wants one more than i do—i shit you not. the motive? i have no idea. to drink tea and dress up or whatever i guess, lol. i think they’re gorgeous works of art myself.

@trippay thats an interesting way to look at them. I guess from that documentary people immediately start jumping to conclusions that only perverted old weirdos want them but I guess you can appreciate them in other ways than intended.

I’m just about to push the button on one of these dolls. Not a Realdoll because they are just too expensive for me. There are other dolls on the market now for less than half price that are just as nice.

I’m getting one for their pure beauty. Unless you are very rich, you’ll never get a girl that looks like this. Yes looks aren’t everything but who wouldn’t want a partner that looks like that?

I also do photography on the side so I am going to LOVE taking pro pictures of her!

I’ve been single for almost two years and I can’t get a date. I’m not a bad looking guy and I have a lot to offer someone but yet for some reason no one is interested. It’s very disheartening. The doll will make it feel like I have someone with me. It sucks living alone and sleeping alone for two years. I’ve been very depressed lately and I think the doll will help me immensely.

I’m not going to stop looking for a real person. The doll will take the pressure off for me of looking though. They’re not for everyone and that’s okay. Neither is spending $20,000 to sit behind home plate at a baseball game either.